and all that for only EUR 390.25 !!!! what a bargain!!!!
🤣

I once found a website that was selling all kinds of industrial motherboards, including s478, LGA775 and even i5/i7

It's probably only made for Pentium 4-generation CPUs though. 🤣

It's probably only made for Pentium 4-generation CPUs though.

Nope. G41 chipset... that's a Core2 board.

Makes you wonder how the ISA slot is actually implemented, considering there are industrial grade PCI to ISA solutions, which are supposed to work ... yet all appear to be quite hack-ish.
Otherwise, there's always the PICMG standard/formfactor or however you wanna call it.

Apart from that ... what use would that ISA slot actually have to most of us? Use your SB/GUS/SCC/etc. with a (operating) system it was never meant to support? That's like glueing a juicer on the dashboard of your car 😉

AFAIK , the ISA bus is still present in new chipsets and serves as an ultra-low cost bus for devices like monitoring chips (temperatures, fan control etc) or some other parts that really just need a simple interface to communicate internally with the chipset...
I guess those manufacturers just put the little extra logic/parts to implement a single ISA slot... and like anything "industrial-grade" costs 😁 😁 😁 (don't get me wrong, some industrial grade stuff are REALLY well built, this mobo looks nothing special though)

AFAIK , the ISA bus is still present in new chipsets and serves as an ultra-low cost bus for devices like monitoring chips (temperatures, fan control etc) or some other parts that really just need a simple interface to communicate internally with the chipset...

Ehh... not exactly. Newer chipsets use the LPC bus, which is basically a completely different animal that, from a software standpoint, does a decent job at pretending to be ISA. It wasn't designed to provide an actual, physical ISA bus...

ah, they "evolved" it... thanks for the update , I was still in the time where those devices were real ISA ones 🤣

I'm pretty sure 440BX was the last Intel chipset that had a native ISA bus. I know i810 used the LPC bus, as did i815... ISA slots weren't an entirely uncommon sight on those boards, but they were usually done with a PCI->ISA bridge. I dunno when Via and the others switched over.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I dunno when Via and the others switched over.

I 'think' the last VIA chipset to support ISA natively was the KT133A, though many boards with that chipset don't come with ISA anyway.

I know one thing these boards could potentially be good for: emulating arcade games with a YM3812 or YMF262 using any SoundBlaster with a discrete YM3812 or YMF262 or a sound card from a competing manufacturer with a discrete YM3812 or YMF262. Old versions of MAME(pre v0.60) have support for sound cards with YM3812s or YMF262s and can actually use those sound chips to produce the FM Synthesis in games with YM3812s or YMF262s on the original arcade board. I don't know how well those motherboards would perform, but on the computer I set up for emulating games with a YM3812 or YMF262, MAME works beautifully with my SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 to produce FM Synthesis in the 3 games I put on the computer(Raiden, Zero Wing, Truxton).

The computer in question is running on a VIA VT82C693A chipset(and just so you know, everything has been overclocked since the FSB was brought up to the maximum 150MHz, and the computer's not complaining one bit - it performs very well with no slowdown in any games and no stability issues). What does that use? A proper ISA bus or the LPC bus through a PCI to ISA bridge? If it's the latter, then using old versions of MAME with support for real OPL2/OPL3 FM Synthesis chips along with an ISA sound card containing a discrete YM3812 or YMF262 will allow for the most accurate sound in games containing a YM3812 or YMF262 on the original board.

Maybe when I upgrade my main desktop computer, I'll purchase one of these motherboards and dual-boot DOS alongside Windows XP or Windows 7. Here's hoping there will be motherboards like this with support for the Core i7.

Ace wrote:

I know one thing these boards could potentially be good for: emulating arcade games with a YM3812 or YMF262 using any SoundBlaster with a discrete YM3812 or YMF262 or a sound card from a competing manufacturer with a discrete YM3812 or YMF262. Old versions of MAME(pre v0.60) have support for sound cards with YM3812s or YMF262s and can actually use those sound chips to produce the FM Synthesis in games with YM3812s or YMF262s on the original arcade board. I don't know how well those motherboards would perform, but on the computer I set up for emulating games with a YM3812 or YMF262, MAME works beautifully with my SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 to produce FM Synthesis in the 3 games I put on the computer(Raiden, Zero Wing, Truxton).

Actually check this Seems way more convenient than buying a specialised mainboard, costing easily 4-5 times as much as a normal consumer-grade one. IIRC that LPT-AdLib solution is even supported by DOSBox ... considering the straight forward design of the AdLib, one could easily make it a standalone adapter not requiring to stick a real OPL2/OPL3 based card setup into your LPT port. If there's enough interest I'd even go the way of soldering 2-3 such adapters for people who don't have the soldering skills required, rather than having them spent a shitload of money on an overpriced mainboard 😉

Oh yes, I remember seeing that while browsing through that site for making a Genesis flash cartridge and converting an NES into a VS. System arcade board(awesome site)! Thing is, I have absolutely no idea where to get those damn AdLib cards for cheap. I saw one on eBay go for around $100US, and there's no way I'm paying that much for an AdLib card. Maybe is there a place where I can just purchase a YM3812 with the matching DAC? I'm pretty sure the AdLib sound card was made using off-the-shelf parts, so building a reproduction shouldn't be too difficult.

Ace wrote:

Oh yes, I remember seeing that while browsing through that site for making a Genesis flash cartridge and converting an NES into a VS. System arcade board(awesome site)! Thing is, I have absolutely no idea where to get those damn AdLib cards for cheap. I saw one on eBay go for around $100US, and there's no way I'm paying that much for an AdLib card. Maybe is there a place where I can just purchase a YM3812 with the matching DAC? I'm pretty sure the AdLib sound card was made using off-the-shelf parts, so building a reproduction shouldn't be too difficult.

Gotta have to check more often 😉 I got my 1990 AdLib for ~$9 off ebay. Recently there's been another card for $30 (which was the "rarer" 1987 version). Other than that, one could use a YMF262 (OPL3 which is 99.8% compatible and found on many early 16bit soundcards) and stick the glue logic from the AdLib on the LPT board as well, eliminating the need for a real AdLib.

Since I'm in Canada, my options on eBay are more limited, especially with a lot of US sellers not shipping their stuff outside of the US. And for me to get anything on eBay, it MUST be a BUY IT NOW listing, not an auction.

Just look! This Canadian seller is selling an AdLib card for $300CAD: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Vintage-Ad-Lib-8-bit-ISA-S … =item5641ca064d

No thanks, I'm not buying an AdLib sound card at that price. I'd buy a Japanese Sharp X68000 computer at that price, but DEFINITELY NOT a sound card.

And it's the only listing for an AdLib sound card on eBay Canada right now. 😒

@ shock_

I remember reading that webpage a while back about hooking up an Ad-Lib via LPT.

You see were trying to use any ISA card we want on these systems, LPT adaptation limits our usable IRQs, and bandwidth, along with preventing use of DMA channels or any sort of 16-bit card.

Double Post Fail. Can't Delete

@ shock_

I remember reading that webpage a while back about hooking up an Ad-Lib via LPT.

You see we're trying to use any ISA card we want on these systems, LPT adaptation limits our usable IRQs, and bandwidth, along with preventing use of DMA channels or any sort of 16-bit card.

Dant wrote:

You see we're trying to use any ISA card we want on these systems, LPT adaptation limits our usable IRQs, and bandwidth, along with preventing use of DMA channels or any sort of 16-bit card.

Well yes, read my very first posting. Good luck getting i.e. second reality to run on an i7